OBJECTIVE The objective of this study was to examine hospital policies and practices to prevent perinatal transmission of hepatitis B virus (HBV) in the United States and to and identify gaps. METHODS In March 2006, a nationally representative sample of 242 delivery hospitals in the 50 states, District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico (with at least 100 annual births) were surveyed about hospital...

hepatitis a virus (hav) infection is a self-limiting disease caused by a 27-nm rna virus from the picorna virus family. its' transmission is primarily via the fecal-oral route. the disease is usually mild and anicteric in children, however the rate of the icteric form, severity, and mortality increase in adult life. the estimated case-fatality rate in age over 40 years is approximately 2%, whil...

Celiac disease has been associated with other autoimmune disorders such as autoimmune hepatitis, moreover it is known that T cell mediated immune response to dietary gluten and released cytokines are important for the entheropathy seen in celiac disease. We investigated celiac autoantibodies in patients with autoimmune hepatitis (AIH), and chronic hepatitis B (CHB).Sera from 84 patients with Au...

abstract mutations have been described in all of the four open reading frames of the hepatitis b virus (hbv), however, from a clinical perspective the surface escape mutant is the most troublesome. hepatitis b surface antigen (hbsag) variants may impair diagnosis, or allow the virus to escape vaccine-induced immunity or passive immunoglobulin therapy. hbv mutants with amino acid substitutions, ...